


Reasonable Suspension

by aMAXiMINalist



Category: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: A New Hope era, Almost Kiss, F/M, Post Battle of Yavin, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:53:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7669120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aMAXiMINalist/pseuds/aMAXiMINalist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She ascended an inch to meet the planes of his eyes, their mode of intimate eye contact, a throwback to the old days where he wouldn’t try to hide the longing in his long-lost eyes.</p><p>His head was suspended, waiting for the answer. </p><p>They weren't there. They were a part of it sure. It was a victory but not a break. Not a conclusion.  Still, not a time of certainty. Post-Battle of Yavin. Flash fic/Drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reasonable Suspension

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emmagrant01](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmagrant01/gifts), [cutlawquane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutlawquane/gifts).



> Many thanks to Cutlawquane for beta-reading this. I'll also gift this piece to emmagrant01, because in some ways, her story "Troposphere" did inspire the scenario and style of this drabble.

In the reflection of the cockpit window, Hera could see the shape of her weary slouch and her wistful eyes observing the stars.

Her Jedi Knight, unmasked, appeared in the frame of the doorway.

He started the conversation. “Did you hear the news?"

"Good or bad?" She already been debriefed on _"the news"_ by Sato _._ But maybe Kanan was bringing up another miscellaneous mission.

She turned to see the arc of a smile playing on his lips. He was talking about  _the news._

“As Captain, how could I miss it? The Empire’s deadliest weapon has been destroyed at Yavin. Major victory. It's the good news.” Nice to have a positive reaffirmed.

"Aren't you joining your Squadron at the base? They're celebrating. They'd want their Captain Syndulla with them."

"Let them. I'll stay here." What happened at Yavin sounded as commonplace as other victories, this Rebel base got this, the Rebel got that. Not that she didn't comprehend the weight of this particular win or downplay the accomplishments of fellow Rebels. It was a light-year closer to the major goal, to end it all. Just a little more fighting, a little more drudgery, a little more missions, and she could see the end.

"Hera, you deserve a break," his voice modulated in that mellowness used to calm.

"This is my break."

She could count the seconds of silence now. Only his breathing and the hum of the _Ghost_ machinery reached her ears.

“Even if we weren’t there for it, even if we were far from it, nice we lived to hear about it,” he mused.

“I’m just grateful we even lived up to this point.” She had to say it.

"It's nice to have time."

"Time," she echoed.

Then the pressure of his breath neared her temple. She astonished herself by not moving away. Then his jaw paused, then his head maneuvered downward in a manner that suggested he was scanning the perimeter of her face without contact. So she ascended an inch, adjusting her slouched back, to meet the planes of his eyes, their mode of intimate eye contact, a throwback to the old days where he wouldn’t try to hide the longing in his long-lost eyes.

Then he froze still by the time his jaw matched the approximate level of her lips, waiting for her, wanting an answer for a question he asked aloud years back before Ezra joined the family.

How she coveted that warmth for so long, since sometime after Gorse, since Mustafar, since Malachor. His breathing was one of her favorite sounds in the universe, more so when she could savor it on her skin. That warmth stirred so much hope that it compelled her to lean forward toward him to grant themselves the answer they both wanted.

But once the pricks of his beard itched the rim of her mouth, she caught the wiff of the scent of last night's mission: the dust on his neck, the soot in his beard, of close calls, of bacta-ointment applied to a grazed-laser wound on his shoulder. 

Upon tearing away, her mouth numbed with a sudden familiar cold.

“Kanan," she muttered, glad he could not see her face buried in her glove, but suspecting he could deduce the noise of the leather anyway, “Yavin was just a battle won. But we haven’t won yet. We need to win this War before I can be certain, Kanan. I want this war to end so I can be certain. But for now, there’s too much going on. The War is still there.” She dropped her hands to the side, but an unmistakable tenseness plagued them.

She waited for him to formulate a reply, staring into the unresponsive milky planes of his eyes, trying in vain to decipher his private thoughts, the shivers in her hands not subsiding.

Her lips trembled with the unutterable. Could he detect those tremors, the stifled quakes of the unsaid?

He kneeled, cupped her gloved fist, and delicately elevated it to his dry lips. She let him linger her hand there, long enough for the tenseness in her palm to unwind, before he surrendered her slackened hand to a gentle descent.

He understood.

When the padding of his footsteps drifted in the belly of the _Ghost_ , Hera stared forward into the reflection of her resolute and ambivalent countenance, superimposed into the horizons of stars.

She lifted her gloved fist and planted her lips on the invisible space where he kissed it.


End file.
